Mobile phone addiction is a fact. In some cities, light indicators have even been placed on the pavement, just before a zebra crossing, so that pedestrians know when to cross the street without stopping to look at the screen in turn. And what about those couples who go out to dinner and check their phones without speaking to each other?
Much of the blame for these behaviors lies with social networks, which we often turn to to escape from reality… The large corporations behind Instagram or TikTok (for example) know this and have developed strategies with which to stay connected. as much time as possible on your applications.
Some of these tricks have been highly criticized by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection of the European Union (IMCO), which has approved a draft on the need to regulate social networks, online games, streaming platforms and stores. on-line. Its goal is to “prevent these digital services from exploiting users’ vulnerabilities to capture their attention and monetize their data.”
Among the addictive mechanisms of networks we find the so-called infinite ‘scroll’, that is, sliding the finger up on the screen of any touch device to load content until we get tired. This can cause us to spend hours looking at photos on Instagram almost without realizing it, for example. In line with the above, we find the videos that play automatically one after another on TikTok; the ‘swipe down’ to refresh the Twitter timeline (now ‘X’); the ephemeral publications (‘stories’) that we consult daily so as not to miss them; Featured content notifications on the smartphone’s lock screen or WhatsApp reading receipts.
The ‘likes’ or ‘likes’ are also designed to hook us on the networks, based on the constant search for external validation by human beings: «The more ‘likes’ I receive, the more I feel I am worth; The more dopamine is activated and the more work to achieve other people’s approval. It is a need for constant reinforcement and it can become a problem,” explains psychologist María Victoria Martos.
«Ethical and fair»
Kim Van Sparrentak, spokesperson for the initiative undertaken by IMCO, stated that “self-discipline is not enough to defeat the addictive design of social networks. The problematic use of mobile phones affects our attention span and brain development at an early age. Fighting it is one of the challenges of our time and if we do not intervene now, it will have a tremendous impact on future generations. The EU already has strict laws regarding food, alcohol and tobacco. It’s time to address the addictive nature of digital services too!
In this sense, the Committee emphasizes that recent initiatives such as the ‘Digital Services Act’ or the ‘Artificial Intelligence Act’ are insufficient because they do not cover legal gaps. He thus urges to include techniques such as infinite scrolling or automatic video playback in the directive on unfair commercial practices, which would mean prohibiting them for all social media users in the European Union. The IMCO is also committed to forcing the companies behind these applications to develop “ethical and fair digital products; designed without dark, confusing or addictive patterns. To do this, they propose establishing a digital right to not be disturbed; notifications are disabled by default; to the chronological order of the publications; to ‘think before you post’ ads and the development of educational campaigns for a healthy digital life.
Did you know?
Diverse studies
referred by IMCO
have linked problematic smartphone use to mental health symptoms such as depression, lack of self-esteem, eating disorders, stress, neglect of family and friends, loss of self-control, insomnia, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. This especially affects children and adolescents, who can also develop attention deficit disorder if they do not make healthy use of technology. While the European Commission has not made a firm decision on this initiative (it is not expected until next year), the truth is that Apple and Google already have mechanisms to help us disconnect from our mobile phones. The most relevant are the usage time statistics that we can find in the iOS and Android settings menu, where we can get an idea of the average daily time we spend looking at the screen and with which applications. From the same section we can also schedule downtime or limit the use of specific apps. Likewise, the notes of Tristan Harris, former Google engineer and founder of the Center for Humane Technology, are useful, who recommends deactivating superfluous phone notifications; install the minimum number of applications (grouping them by categories so as not to consult them so often) and uninstall the social network applications to force us to visit them from the browser.
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